Hybrid vehicles, even with their amazing gas-to-mileage ratio, don't resonate with people of color. So Toyota announced plans to donate 22 Prius hybrid vehicles to select HBCUs across the Southwestern Atlantic, NewsOnereports.

School administrators will be granted one-year leases on the 50-mile-per-gallon vehicles as a part of the Toyota Green Initiative (TGI) program that aims to help students at HBCUs live a more green-centered lifestyle.

"It’s stimulating a dialogue in African-American communities that ‘we’re part of this too,' " Jim Colon, Toyota VP of Product Communications, told NewsOne.

"It’s just not isolated to one group. We have the thinking; we have the background; we have the intelligence that everybody else has, and we’re going to use it," Colon said. "We’re going to empower ourselves, and we’re going to try to figure out how to make our lives better. Why should we be less healthy than everybody else?"

Former Fresh Prince of Bel Air star and TGI spokesperson Tatyana Ali told NewsOne, "I like what having a Prius says about me. It says this is where my values are. I want to share that message of what it means to be respectful of your environment, respectful of your health and your place in this world."